


Four Times Brandt Almost Died

by james



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, major angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-11
Updated: 2012-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times William Brandt almost died, and one time he did.  Ethan loves, loses, loves again, and loses again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Brandt Almost Died

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt at the ghotocol [kinkmeme.](http://ghotocol-kink.livejournal.com/1494.html?thread=31190#t31190)

The first time Ethan reads about in William's file; reading between the lines and filling in the blanks. Understands more than even William's parents did at the time, the hospital covering up their nearly fatal mistakes. Five year old William in to have his tonsils out and the over-worked intern with too-little sleep wrote down a wrong dosage and William nearly died. The nurse caught it in time, made a notation that somehow ended up in William's IMF file decades later.

Ethan isn't surprised when the anger hits him, and he allows himself to consider for a moment hunting down that once-intern and giving him a scare. He shoves the emotion aside as nonsense -- and far too late to do any good, regardless.

He sets the page aside and goes to the next, scanning the pages one by one.

~~~

The second time William nearly dies is his second ever IMF mission. A rookie, wet behind the ears and feeling as raw as the day he began training, he doesn't see the bullet that cracks the wall just inches from his ear. A fine spray of cement dust and brick fragments showers his shoulder and hair and it takes another second for the realization to hit that he needs to duck, needs to pay closer attention.

He remembers his mentor telling him that most rookies don't get past their third field assignment, either they wash out of field work or-- Robinson hadn't used the words but William gets it, he really does. He falls to a crouch and tries to kick his brain into gear, tries to remember what he's supposed to do.

His team is just shadowing another, letting him and another rookie get a feel for what's in store. They're not even supposed to be part of the action, and if they're made their only job is to run, hide, get out of the way.

He hears footsteps and he's spinning, pulling out his gun and he yanks it back only just in time as he recognizes the face of one of the agents from the team he's tailing. The other agent grabs him by the arm and pulls; William knows enough to keep his mouth shut and do as he's told. He follows the man down the alley, hides where he's instructed, and when the agent stops and looks him in the eye for one long, silent moment, William wonders if he will ever forget this man's face. Dark eyes bore into his, intent and serious -- but without censure, no blame for being too inexperienced to rescue himself. Even if it's only a sniper on a rooftop, what should have been IMF 101.

William gives him a nod and the other agent turns and runs, and it's several moments later when William eases away and heads for his rendezvous point.

He makes a point of looking up Agent Hunt's file, after, and even though he's only cleared to read about ten percent of it, it's clear that Agent Hunt is one of IMF's golden boys on the rise. Robinson tells William that even Hunt fucked up when he was a rookie, so William feels better about his own chances.

~~~

The third time is almost too fast for anyone to notice. Waiting in a jungle, hunkered down in face-paint and useless rain-gear and wondering what part of 'IMF' means 'dress up like Army Rangers and eat grub worms for a week.' He's used to cities and populations of millions, a knack for the sort of jobs that take his team to national capitals around the world. He's just finished his course in Hindi-Urdu, making it his seventh language fluency. He's been eager to practice his accent and instead he's here, the other four members of his team hunkered down to wait out the rain -- it's a rain forest, it'll be months -- and waiting for their drop so they can get on with the trek to the coast. He's looking forward to being surrounded by humans instead of monkeys, a tribe of them following overhead and laughing at them from the treetops.

Brandt doesn't even hear it, but suddenly Walter is aiming his gun and Brandt is too well-trained to move, even when Walter fires. The rest of the team has had their guns out and trained on Walter, just in case he's been brain-washed into killing their team leader. Walter smirks at them as the snake falls from a bush at Brandt's feet.

"Dinner?" Brandt says, and he swallows against the adrenaline rush.

"Better than these fucking meal bars," Walter agrees, and he gives Brandt a smile. "Thanks, boss!"

"For nearly getting bitten?"

"For being bait," Walter agrees, and soon enough they have the snake skinned and cooking, and Brandt forgets about just how fast the snake's poison is reported to be.

~~~

 _Ethan reads it in Brandt's file and his hands grip the paper tightly, just for a moment. He knows perfectly well he's over-reacting and he knows perfectly well why. He isn't blind to his reactions to the man, but he needs to know Brandt better before Ethan can allow himself to even consider acting on them._

 _When he reads about Croatia, he sets the file down for a very long time, then picks it back up again and continues reading._

 _Later, after Brandt confesses and accepts his assignment, Ethan waits to see Julia, catching her smile and wave. When he leaves, he knows that she's as happy as she can be, under the circumstances, and that she was never cruel enough to wish him anything less than he can have._

 _There's a lot he can't have: namely, her, but it feels as though he's asked, and she's answered, and even if it isn't love forever after than maybe it'll be something, and that'll be enough._

~~~

The fourth time is on a job, and Ethan is the one who is a second too slow. The day before, Ethan's hand had slipped on William's jacket and he'd vanished into the crowd, pulled by unseen hands and disappearing as though swallowed whole. It's taken the team twenty three hours to locate him, and now Ethan comes sliding into the room, feet first through the door and he's firing, a gun in each hand, and bodies are falling in all directions. When he stops, his ears are ringing and he has to look around, through the smoke and flames, straining for any sight of-- there. He scurries over, not even bothering to stand up, keeping his head down where the air is relatively clear.

William is lying still and for a second Ethan can't even reach over. Then he grabs William's shoulder, gently, fighting the urge to shake him awake like it's just Sunday morning and William is trying to get out of an early morning run. Ethan scoots closer, heart beating wildly and it isn't fucking fair, because it's only been a few months and he was just getting used to being happy again and--

William turns his head and grins up at him. "Took your sweet time," he rasps, and Ethan is already checking him over for injuries, finds only the handcuffs and metal chain around his ankles.

"Did they--" he asks, and he's grabbing a lock pick out of his belt and working the cuffs free without finishing his question.

"Conked me on the head," William says softly. He looks over at the men who'd tossed him into the burning room. "They were about to make sure I couldn't make a run for it," he adds, and Ethan doesn't need details. He knew what they were doing when he saw them: gun aimed at William's back, shoot him and leave him to a long, painful death.

"Good thing I was listening in," he says, and he isn't choking on his words, but the smoke is getting thicker and he just wants to grab his lover and run.

He thinks about what Jane said, as he picks William up off the floor and half-carries him out of the building. Ethan had been willing to have fun, enjoy himself, and Jane had just looked at him and said, "It's better, you know. Even when you know you'll lose them one day, or they you. It's better." She'd looked at him and he'd known what she was thinking of, how she'd never trade being in love with Trevor for anything, not even to lose the heartache of his death.

Ethan had asked William out the next day, formally taken him to dinner then taken him home, taken him to bed like a hundred other times. Yet somehow William had understood what was being asked, and the following weekend they'd gone to William's place and packed his things.

They'd made Benji and Jane help tote boxes, of course, and Ethan had pretended not to notice Benji giving Jane a folded up twenty.

Now, as he gets William outside and helps him into the waiting van, his heart is racing and he has to cling to Jane's belief that this is better. Julia is safe, half a world away, and he never sees her, never touches her, never hears her voice. He still has William, safe in his arms and he buries his face in William's hair and inhales, smelling smoke and blood and fear, and tells himself it's worth it.

~~~

Ethan is standing in a cemetery in front of an open plot. There is no headstone, nor will there be. The casket which will be lowered into the ground will be empty, save one piece of cloth Ethan has provided. It's currently being cleaned, stripped of every bit of identifying DNA that could be traced back to himself, William, or indeed anyone who has ever known either them.

Ethan knows providing the cloth is probably pointless, because William's body is in Morocco, long since turned to ashes. Cremated three times over until there is nothing left, then scattered to the wind and sand. Each of them: Benji, Jane, himself, had carried a handful of ashes to spread them out, leaving no noticeable trace of anything but the ground and the wind and the sea.

They could have simply handed the body over to IMF for disposal, safer and cleaner and faster, but Ethan could not even let go of William's hand, unable to imagine letting someone else take care of this.

He still had a tiny vial of ashes, against every rule and ingrained common sense. IMF agents had to vanish upon death, utterly and completely and Ethan knew that within a few more hours all traces of William would be gone from the paperwork, every file and cache of data save for the one under lock and key and seven miles underground.

William is as gone as it is possible to be, and people who knew him would soon deny it, as they'd been taught, showing blank at his name and no recognition at seeing a photograph.

Ethan has had to watch sweepers gather up everything in their house, every piece of William that was left and take it away. Some of it was his own belongings, but Ethan had let them take it, unable to argue that William only borrowed it, like the cup he drank from when they'd neglected to do the dishes and he'd had to take his coffee in a too-small cup of melamine plastic. Ethan would make fun of the cartoon bird on the side, and William would counter that he would drink coffee straight from the pot if Ethan would let him, but until the dishwasher finished it was cartoon birds and burnt fingers, or else Ethan could haul his ass down to buy him a cup from the corner shop.

The cup had been Julia's, but William had used it and Ethan had let it go into the trash bags with everything else. When the sweepers left, Ethan had been left standing in the living room, staring at the mess. Books discarded, half-open, a pair of shoes dropped because someone had determined they were Ethan's. The grocery list written in Ethan's hand left on the fridge, but the top ten sheets of the notepad torn off because the indentations from the previous list were William's.

He's standing here now, unsure how he got here or why he even cares. This empty place isn't William, will never be. The handkerchief he selected was one of his own, held no true meaning other than it had been kept in a drawer nestled beside William's own. Not directly beside: those had been taken. But close enough that it was the only connection he could find to give, that William could be buried in spirit and give his friends someplace to go to think of him.

Ethan knows he won't be coming back here. IMf will bury a casket and think they're doing him a small kindness, and Ethan will take his bereavement leave disguised as a cakewalk mission on domestic soil, and he and Benji and Jane will do their milk run and pretend they don't want to talk about him. Ethan will pretend he isn't broken into a million pieces, and that he can't even tell which pieces are aching for William, and which for Julia.

He thinks about going to Seattle. He thinks about what he would say, in the fantasy where he can go to her and tell her all he has lost. If she would hold him, whisper nonsense about it being okay, and if she could make him forget all over again.

Instead he walks back home, slips the vial into a drawer, and goes to sit by the window and watches, waiting to see if anyone will come home.


End file.
